


All These Empty Spaces Where You Should Be

by ArchWriter



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Post-Season 4, season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 19:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9457835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArchWriter/pseuds/ArchWriter
Summary: All these empty spaces didn’t make sense to Derek. There should be someone in that vacant spot and empty seat in his pictures, and he can’t understand – can’t remember – why he’d keep a scrap of red plaid cloth with him that smells so much of someone he doesn’t know but reminds him so strongly of home.He feels he should remember. Why can’t he?-Derek on the road during the events of Season 6A.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is just a random drabble I did after getting sucked into reading too much TW fanfics over the last two weeks. We all ask ourselves: where the heck is Derek exactly, and is he ever coming back? Well, my imagination took the liberty of writing this fic, and yet, it does not answer the initial questions. Haha.
> 
> The current (and final) season is a heartbreaker, especially S06E08, and well, this may have been influenced by that episode as well. Anyways, let me wallow in my misery of sorely missing Stiles and Derek on the show (so many characters I miss ugh).
> 
> Anyway, hope you liked what I wrote. :D

The first thing Derek remembers after waking up on a late Tuesday morning is the smell of chlorine.

All at once, the strong scent of the chemical registered so distinctly and sharply with his senses, it woke him up immediately, and taking a careful sweep of his surroundings, he adjusted himself as he took inventory of where he was. He gazed at the worn down motel room he had stayed in the night prior, the sun peeking through dusty blinds and illuminating the room in harsh yet broken daylight. He was wrapped in sheets of a messy circular bed, an overhead fan providing weak ventilation. Derek glanced at the clock by the bedside table, taking note it was an hour before noon already.

He rubbed his face in exhaustion – a full twelve hours of sleep did him no justice for the runs he took last night in his wolf form.

It had been almost a year since he had undergone his evolution – his shift in forms taking a new level of power he had not possessed, even when he was Alpha. The full-wolf shift was something only two people he knew could do: his mother, Talia, and his sister, Laura. He had never learned the secrets behind this form since none of the two older women had the chance to talk to him about it, but for the last months, he had taken it up to teach himself.

Derek stood up and went to the small bathroom his motel room offered, washing his face and staring at himself in the mirror. His usual light brown eyes glowed blue for a second, and let out a tired sigh at himself.

For the first few months after leaving Beacon Hills, he had traveled the country with Braeden, a mercenary and former US Marshall that hunted the Desert Wolf, leaving Mexico and Scott and his friends to go back to the county and oversee their territory.

_The Hale lands._

There was a time that Derek would have fought tooth and nail to maintain control and in power in those lands where he was born and raised, but developments since his return to Beacon Hills have taught him some things are beyond his control – beyond him, period – and that it was time to let go of the place that gave him so much and took them away as well. He had grown and lost family and friends in Beacon Hills, and maybe, it wouldn’t be too bad to let all of that go, if it meant changing and moving forward and past his former self.

To be better.

It had been a solid companionship with Braeden, late nights and mornings and days melding together to form weeks, until Braeden’s trail on the Desert Wolf went in a wide arc and circled back to where it all started – the old county of Beacon Hills.

Derek remembered as Braeden charted the course back to the county, and he would have followed her, really, but it didn’t feel right for him to return, at least not yet, not when there was still more to himself he had to discover out in the world. And he couldn’t do that if he returned to the one place that has trapped him in the past for so long, the place that reminded him of the mistakes he made and the shortcomings he had.

_“You… You don’t want to go back to Beacon Hills?”_

_“It’s not that I don’t want to. I just feel that I don’t belong there anymore. Besides, you won’t need me there. Scott and his pack will be all the backup you’ll need.”_

_“I see. I guess… this is it then. See you around Derek.”_

Derek should have felt sadder at their separation, but strangely he felt okay with it. Derek had grown close to the huntress – loved her even – but his feelings for her were like the warm embers of a hearth: comfortable and welcome, and somehow a feeling of belonging. But it wasn’t the kind of flame that heated him up despite their nights together. It was a warm feeling – but it wasn’t the kind of love that would tear him apart if they were separated. It was more of the kind of warmth that a longstanding friendship offered.

So despite their separation, they went their separate ways on a positive note, and Derek had been on his own since then. Using some cash he got from odd jobs with Braeden during their time together, Derek bought a secondhand car with some decent mileage still on it, and traveled cross country with nothing on him but his meager possessions: clothes and cash, and a small bag of trinkets that reminded him of home.

That had been weeks – months – ago, and suddenly he realized it had been the longest he’s been on his own without any sort of companionship.

Derek got dressed in fresh clothes and gathered his belongings, turning over the room key at the reception booth before making his way to his car. Clambering inside, he rolled down the windows to cool down the interior, and inclined his seat to relax, still a bit heady from the persistent scent of chlorine that somehow would not leave him. He took a steadying breath and exhaled, willing his senses to focus and drive away the uninvited sensation.

_Strong arms around him. Water up to his chest. Ragged breathing. Paralysis. Panic, yet somehow, comfort as well. The strong scent of chlorine._

His senses were overloaded by the sudden sharpness of the memory, like Derek was somehow transported someplace else that wasn’t in his car, and he gasped at the unbidden memory, confused as to where it came from. He didn’t know where the sudden ragged breaths he took came from either – but he knew a panic attack when it showed itself.

He knew what to do of course, the breathing exercises, but it wasn’t enough – he needed his anchor.

Derek grabbed his duffel bag and rifled though it until he found the small pouch that contained the parts of Beacon Hills he wanted to remember. Inside was an assortment of random objects he had collected over time and decided to keep: a cheap pendant from Scott, a broken arrowhead from Allison, lace from one of Lydia’s outfits, a small _kunai_ from Kira, vials of wolfsbane from Deaton, a roll of bandage courtesy of Melissa McCall, a pistol he pilfered from Chris Argent’s collection, broken handcuffs from Sheriff Stilinski, and for some reason, a scrap of cloth as well.

Red plaid.

He kept the objects as more than just solid mementos though; the objects carried their owner’s scents, all at once comforting and present. _Anchoring him_.

He forwent the objects though, and took out the pictures inside instead. There were three. The first one was an old family picture, one that survived the fire that killed his family more than half a decade ago: it showed his mother, Talia Hale, smiling regally into the camera. Beside her was his father, Kevin, and surrounding his parents were them, young Laura, Derek, and twins Cora and Nick, all smiles for the camera.

The second picture was a shot taken with a camera on timer in his loft. They were sitting on the couch; beside him was Scott and Lydia on either side. Next to Scott were Allison and Isaac, the latter with an arm around the girl, and beside Lydia was the Alpha twins Aiden and Ethan with goofy expressions. Peter was at a corner of the picture, near the spiral staircase, flanked by Cora who flashed a grin for the camera. For some reason, there was a noticeable blank space in between Derek and Scott, like they were waiting for someone to fill the empty seat between them, but never got in the picture. This one was taken before everything with the _nogitsune_ tore them apart; before they lost Allison and Aiden, Ethan left, and Isaac and Chris had moved away to France.

The last one was a stolen shot by Melissa, with none of them conscious of the camera. They were out on the field; Derek was clad in his leather jacket, smiling at everyone beside him. It had Scott and Kira beside each other in their lacrosse uniforms, and then Malia and Lydia, and beside them was Scott’s new beta, Liam Dunbar and his best friend, Mason. Oddly, there was an empty space between Scott and Malia in the picture, where someone probably should have been. He remembers someone dropping off the picture at his place, making some snarky comment he should frame the picture and hang it up somewhere in his barren loft to liven up his space.

He never did.

Derek felt his breathing return to normal, and looked at the pictures. They were his pictures, but somehow, something felt off. The empty spaces in those two pictures looked too wrong – too impossible to be empty – that Derek felt he was forgetting something important.

Something was missing. Some _one_ was missing.

_Brown doe eyes. Disheveled brown hair. Moles against pale skin. The quirk of a mischievous smile._

All these empty spaces didn’t make sense to Derek. He instinctively knows there should be someone in that vacant spot and empty seat in his pictures, and he can’t understand – can’t remember – why he’d keep a scrap of red plaid cloth with him that smells so much of someone he doesn’t know but reminds him so strongly of home.

He feels he should remember. Why can’t he?

_Climbing up roofs, opening unlocked windows. Long nights over research, coffee in between. Drives in a blue Jeep and his black Camaro. His arms, hands, on someone, pinning them against vertical surfaces._

Derek placed the pictures back in the pouch and buries them back in his duffel bag. He rolled the seat forwards and keyed in the engine, still occupied by empty spaces and unfamiliar feelings and vague memories.

_He remembers Mexico, being taken down by a surprise attack from a Berserker. Braeden was at his side, and someone at a distance hesitates to leave him. He remembers those eyes, how they used to look at him with wariness, and how back then it only held worry and concern for him._

_“Save him,” he wheezed. Save Scott. Go._

Derek eased the car out of the parking and went on the road, already driving to the nearest diner or gas station a few miles off. He felt the memory slipping away from him, but he doesn’t want it to – he tried to hold on to it, to this memory of someone who looks at Derek like he matters.

_“Sourwolf.”_

He focused his eyes on the road, an empty stretch of asphalt and barren landscapes, the hot wind passing through his windows as he drives to the next destination. He remembers backs of trucks and holding Liam in place, soft mantras to calm the new beta down.

_“Alpha, Beta, Omega.”_

_It doesn’t work._

_“Hey, hey! Liam, look at me! Answer me: what three things can no long be hidden?”_

_“The sun…the moon…the truth.”_

_And somehow it works – this chant that someone suggested instead. He remembers the sigh of relief they both take, and the feeling of soft happiness at the little victories they could have, when they could have it._

And he misses this person – this person he can’t remember, and it makes him want to cry and pull his hair out. Because he knows this person so well – maybe they were even close, saving each other – that the thought of forgetting them is too painful to even consider.

Derek felt like he’s losing someone, only that it feels so much worse than he thought it would, because he knows he’s losing someone, and he doesn’t know who it is.

It’s like missing a person that’s blurring out of existence.

But Derek won’t allow it. He won’t forget. He won’t, because as much as he knows he has family inside him with the wolf that runs through him, he knows he has Beacon Hills with him through distance. He’ll always have his lost betas. He’ll always have a friend in Scott. He’ll always – he’ll always have –

_Stiles._

Derek hears the activity of a gas station before he sees it, and pulls over when he reaches it. He grabs the small pouch in his duffel bag and digs for the pictures again. Nothing has changed – the empty spaces in the pictures remain as vacant as they had been hours ago, but now he knows the empty spaces should hold someone named Stiles.

He runs a finger through the blank space on the couch between him and Scott, and sighs. He doesn’t know this Stiles – doesn’t remember him for some reason – but he knows deep inside that Stiles is important. That between the miles separating him from Beacon Hills and the hazy knowledge of this suddenly unfamiliar boy’s existence – he is home, and that all these empty spaces is where he should be.

He doesn’t know how it’s true; he just knows he’s sure. And if he had to turn his car around and drive it ragged back to the place he’s run away from, then he’d do it.

But for the moment, he’d park his car at an empty slot by the gas station and recline in his seat again, close his eyes and try to sleep. And if he dreams of a familiar bedroom and beastiaries and litters of paper and empty coffee mugs surrounding disheveled hair and smatters of moles across pale skin, he doesn’t wonder why and just breathes.

For now it’s enough – he’d remember a little more tomorrow.


End file.
